CAIRO: A United Kingdom-based oil and gas company, Circle, announced on Friday that it had struck oil in their onshore Northwest Gemsa Concession in Egypt, triggering optimism in the North African country.

According to initial reports from the company, production was over 3,000 barrels per day of crude oil and 4 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas. The concession lies southeast of Cairo in the Gulf of Suez Basin.

"This discovery is excellent news," Circle Chief Executive Officer David Hough, said in a statement. He noted that this discovery comes on the heels of the company's gas production start-up in Morocco.

Hough said the discovery gave them the option of bringing the concession's Al Amir SE-1 ST well into production quickly and "will also allow us to carry out our ambitious plan to drill 15 wells over the next 24 months" on its North African licenses. The Al Amir well had previously been derailed due to operational difficulties in the country.

Circle has operations in Morocco, Namibia, Oman, Panama and Tunisia and holds a 40 percent interest in the Northwest Gemsa concession with Premier that includes operations in the North Sea, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Premier holds a 10 percent stake. Vegas Oil and Gas, a privately-held Greek firm, owns the remaining 50 percent of the stake. Egypt produces about 665,000 barrels of oil per day and about 1.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. –Agencies